May 16 2004

May 16, 2004.
This was the first day for Tour#2. We targeted the warm front in Nebraska and had a long drive from Norman. The day was plagued with technical problems. John's laptop died. My WXWORX receiver also died. We stopped in York, NE for data and then continued NNW. Soon a few storms started to pop, but we couldn't see anything. Visibility was very poor. We heard warnings go up to our west and we targeted them. Trying to project the path and find a suitable intercept rout. We went west towards Amelia and suddenly the visibility improved and we saw the storm. It was much better than anticipated and had a nice rotating updraft. I looked hard in the rain core and saw a cone tornado in the middle of it. We decided to get a little close to see it better. It emerged from the rain and planted itself firmly on the ground. It then evolved into a multivortex tornado and crossed the road about 1/4 mile in front of us. In the fourth picture, you can see a little bit of a debris cloud to the right of the tornado from another suction spot.